Cities of Lions

A major force which drives up the cost of projects in the US is that each one is operating in isolation. If multiple agencies would place bulk orders for parts they all needed, they could take advantage of economies of scale to drive down the cost of each part, from bolts all the way up to trains!

4) Require and help cities and states to make use of economies of scale in their train purchases🧵

Streamlining this process for train projects (and other transit and bike infrastructure work) would do much to help get America back on track!🧵

If the administration wants to actually tackle environmental regulations which are doing harm, many a major infrastructure project has been delayed, been made more expensive, and dragged out until it was canceled by the federal environmental review processes required by NEPA.🧵

3) Streamline or waive NEPA review requirements for passenger rail and transit projects 🧵

Currently, a major reason that passenger rail is so unreliable and slow in much of the US is that the tracks are owned by freight rail companies who force the passenger trains to restrict their operational hours, frequencies, and often delay trains to keep the cargo trains moving first. 🧵

2) Freight rail companies receiving federal dollars for upgrades to their infrastructure must give Amtrak and other passenger trains priority🧵

This will not only boost ridership, it will also help to make it easier for families to settle down and have children in more affordable ways as they won’t need to spend as much on transportation (aligning with the stated goal of boosting marriage and birth rates).🧵

1) States getting funds for passenger rail improvements must adopt statewide zoning laws around train stations which make it easier to build denser, more walkable, mixed use neighborhoods🧵

If the President wanted to condition rail funding on policies which would actually improve passenger rail, here are some ideas...🧵

This also seems heavily tied to this administration’s fixation on an imagined population growth crisis and fears around shifting demographics.🧵

Experts warn that this policy and how it is being implemented (as a condition rather than as a desired outcome of a condition) will reinforce forced car dependence, as census tracts with the highest rates of marriage AND birth tend to currently have higher incomes and rates of people driving alone.🧵

Second, priority is being given to areas with higher rates of birth and marriage, in line with a February DOT directive. On the surface, this may sound innocent, but the AND is doing a lot of heavy lifting.🧵

For example, disability accessibility is part of the E and I. Ensuring we don’t bulldoze more poor and/or minority neighborhoods to build highways is part of the D and E. This isn’t a dog whistle. It’s a bullhorn of really horrific implications!🧵

Setting aside the dangerous anti-science approach to the very real threat of climate change, this administration has shown that what they term as “DEI” is anything which aims to protect vulnerable people and/or challenges the existing social order. 🧵

First, in order to get the money, states or agencies must remove all language relating to climate change and DEI.🧵

For example, the US DOT has long conditioned highway funds on the setting the state drinking age to 21, as drunk driving across state lines was a major problem.

However, two of the conditions attached to this rail funding don’t seem to align with this trend...🧵

Conditional funding is nothing new, nor is it bad. Many programs condition funds to achieve policy goals, but there is usually a clear correlation between the conditions and relevant desired policy outcomes. 🧵

This year Trump pulled $4 billion in funding from California’s high speed rail project.
Now, they want to take $2.4 billion of it and redistribute it (plus another $2.6 billion) to other passenger rail projects. This sounds benign, but there are some concerning conditions attached to the money 🧵

The President is playing petty partisan politics with the nation’s infrastructure while his party shuts down the government to try to take affordable healthcare away from American citizens!

Yes, this is a real argument against street narrowing which we have heard more than once. This also applies to fire trucks.

Cities all over the world have narrower streets and still have world class fire protection and garbage collection!

So, setting aside the Idaho Stop laws a good chunk of the country uses…

You do realize what you’re saying is that even with all that light and sign running…cyclists have still killed zero people…

So…you’re kinda proving our point…

That’s a joke right?

Yeah but maybe if we said “killed by gun”maybe we would stop deflecting blame and actually get serious about gun control

You realize this is like saying “guns don’t kill people…” right?

The driver is implied (and “cars” fit the graphic better 😅)